One Step Forward, Two Steps Back or is it Four?

Last night I didn’t start chores until 9pm. By then the mosquitoes were out in full force. Oh how I dread mosquito season.  I felt more productive than I really was. I was able to put up the temporary fence in the yard again although in a different place so it only holds half the number of horses. I let out half the big herd while I puttered doing other things. Unfortunately I didn’t get out all the hard keepers. Dude and Chaos insisted that they go out. King insisted too but I’m putting him on a diet. Now that I know he has laminitis, I’m going to keep a closer eye on his diet. I have decided I hate throwing hay in the summer. I had to tackle putting fly spray on all the horses AND throw hay. Each one in itself is time consuming and then to add both, I spent all but just a few short minutes either fighting hay or getting wacked in the face with a tail (and by the way, getting wacked in the eye with a tail is very painful. I know I stood there stunned for a few minutes recovering from the pain. Chaos has a wicked tail swat).

I’m hoping that we will be able to push in two more round bales while I’m at another drill team performance this weekend (Irene Rodeo – Fri at 7pm and Sat at 6pm). It would cut down on my worries and then I wouldn’t feel like I needed to rush around as much. We’ll see. I would rather use last year’s round bales than last year’s big squares. The quality of the big squares is better although I was grumbling last night as the big slivers disintegrated when I tried to pull them apart and get them into my cart. I know last year’s hay wasn’t the greatest and I’m excited to see the quality of this year’s hay. I hate having to constantly stress and worry over hay and hay prices. I wish we had more land so that we could put up even just a few of our own bales instead of having to buy everything. I guess for now I should just be happy that we do have hay still to offset not being able to use the pasture.

I have decided that I’m going to put the horses on the pasture next week. The pasture will have had six weeks to recover and grow. I haven’t walked the pasture yet. I think I’m in denial. If the grass didn’t grow, I don’t want to know.  But I need to get some of the hard keepers out on grass so they have time to get fat. Even with 24x7 access to hay, some just aren’t doing as well as I’d like. I’m also thinking I’ll haul Ivan and Brego up to Madison next week so they can spend the next month or more there.

I haven’t let the horses out on the lawn for the past month because there was nothing left to eat in the main area. I’m going to do some re-fencing this week and kick the big herd out onto the lawn again to get them used to the grass. I’m hoping that having the horses on the lawn will help decrease the number of mosquitoes. I think I’ll fence in the front yard too for Rabbit and the ponies. I think I’m going to keep them together for the summer. When our son was in the hospital, Mike and J put a round bale out in their pen along with the cinch net. I figured by now that the round bale would be done and gone. Nope. There’s still plenty of hay left for them to munch on. But I need to get Rabbit out on grass. Her heaves are flaring up. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s from eating on the round bale. It’s this time of year that her heaves flare. I think the pollen and general dust make her heaves flair. If I can separate her for about 10 minutes every night, I could resume her medication but with the ponies in with her, I can’t. Tommy will push in and Rabbit won’t get the meds.

I also realized last night that we are in desperate need of some general cleanup around our place. In years past we would go in waves. We would spend two years fixing things that break and one year starting and working on a new project.

Unfortunately, it’s been two straight years of not doing anything. Last year I was pregnant, and this year I’m struggling to find time to get anything done. I know I’m stretched too thin but don’t want to give anything up. But because we haven’t been fixing anything but major issues, we haven’t been able to focus on the little things that keep breaking. So that probably means we have to spend the next four years fixing things that have broken or are on the verge of breaking before we can look at starting any new projects.

Last night I started getting antsy knowing that we are already past the longest day of the year (that’s a story all in its own).  I realized that with my limited time to get anything done that I better take advantage of my time outside. The Bear had already gone down for the night and the mosquitoes were too bad for Mike to be outside. I decided I’d tackle cleaning up some of the junk that I’ve thrown out but never really picked up. I didn’t get far before I had to quit but it was a good feeling. Our place looks dumpy for multiple reasons but it’ll be nice to look out one day and see a nice place again some day.  Hopefully I can keep up this cleaning streak and get a few more things picked up. I’d love to have a volunteer day and set everyone one different projects to accomplish. There’s so much to be done before winter sets in (sad that I’m already thinking winter), washing and waterproofing blankets, repairing broken boards in the hay barn, scraping and painting the hay barn, repairing stalls, cleaning stalls, cleaning pens, building a run-in shed in the smaller pen, etc. All so many worthwhile projects and no time to get them accomplished. I guess for anyone that has some time on your hands, you are more than welcome to come out. I’ll gladly put you to work. I can’t pay you but I can feed you!